Seven women war correspondents, whose work in Vietnam helped to change the role of women in journalism, will reunite to share their experiences at 8 p.m. Friday, April 7, at the West Virginia University Health Sciences Center Main Auditorium.

CBS correspondent Martha Teichner will moderate the panel discussion,”On the Frontlines: Women Who Covered the Vietnam War and Changed Journalism History.”The panel, which launches Journalism Week 2000, is co-sponsored by the WVU Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism and the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Center for Women’s Studies. The forum will be taped by C-Span and aired nationally around April 30 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.

Panelists include:

Tad Bartimus nationally syndicated columnist, CEO and co-founder of The Women Syndicate and former Associated Press special correspondent;

Denby Fawcett political reporter for KITV _4, ABC affiliate in Honolulu, and former reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser;

Jurate Kazickas freelance author for women’s magazines and former freelance print and radio reporter; Edie LedererAssociated Press United Nations’correspondent and former AP foreign correspondent;

Anne Merick freelancer for M/2 and former ABC field producer/correspondent;

Laura Palmer ABC “Nightline”producer, author of Shrapnel in the Heart and former ABC and NBC freelance radio reporter; and

Tracy Wood Orange County Register investigative editor and former UPI correspondent.

The event is primarily funded by the first Judith Gold Stitzel Endowment for Excellence in Women’s Studies Teaching and Learning grant.

Christine M. Martin, Journalism School interim dean, and Maryanne Reed, broadcast news associate professor, received the grant to bring these journalists, who worked in every mediumnewspapers, magazines, wire services and radio and television, to the WVU campus. Grants from the Freedom Forum and from Nancy and Joseph Kanter also help fund the event.

Martin’s research for a Freedom Forum-funded collection of the women correspondents’oral histories led to the idea for the panel. Both she and Reed will also work on a documentary film featuring these pioneering women.

The event is free and open to the public.